1774 October 27

Jane Attwater, Bratton, to Mary Steele, Broughton, [Thursday] 27 October 1774.

Bratton Oct^r 27 1774

The tender anxiety my dearest Friend you express for your unworthy Myrtilla claims my more yⁿ grateful acknowledgements I know not how to speak half y^e pleasure I feel in knowing I possess y^e Friendship of such a Friend. Your worth still is heightened & I can truly say y^e more I know the more I love. It gives me pain to think of your uneasyness for me & how is it increased by y^e sense I have of the unworthiness of y^e object of your concern. Did my Silvia know even but as well as I know myself I believe her partiality (great as I think it to be) would not look over y^e numberless faults w^ch would yⁿ appear but too conspicious a Large part in the affection of her for whom my heart tells [paper torn] it feels the sincerest Gratitude & y^e tenderest Friendship.

[My] health after w^ch you so kindly inquire is I assure you perfectly [paper torn] established some time back I was not so well occasioned by taking cold which was attended with an almost continual headach but thro’ divine goodness I have now y^e greatest reason to be thankful as I injoy perfect health & am ^freed^ from y^t anxiety of mind w^ch of late I own I was too much oppresed with. I hope I in some measure saw my Error in giving way to it for by all my prying into futurity I saw I could not alter one thing y^t was appointed for me or by any means know what was best for myself or others & still w^t added weight to my reasonings was y^e absurdity of such conduct [paper torn] concerning myself about what perhaps may never come to pass & if it did yet not to me knowing also y^t there is an over ruling providence in all things w^ch acts in Infinite wisdom – I hope a consideration of those things has in a measure calm’d my mind & excited a chearful confidence in divine mercy as to all present or future Events. I hope my desire is to commit my ways unto God & I have yⁿ y^e promise y^t he will direct anyways – I wou’d wish to say with our dear Theodosia in her Excellent hymn intitled “The Mysteries of Providence” – w^ch of late I have read with peculiar pleasure.

I have been highly favour’d of late. I think I told you I heard M^r Francis at Trowbridge, he has since been here. M^r Evans Sen^r was here last Sabbath day he baptized 5 persons 2 of whom were M^r & Miss Ballard. He gave us two Excellent sermons y^e first from Mark y^e 3^d p^t of y^e 15^th verse viz & Suffer it to be sorrow for thus it becometh us to fulfil all Righteousness. I think every unprejudiced mind must own his arguments to be strictly agreeable to divine record & convincing – in y^e afternoon p^chd f^m Acts y^e 2^nd & 42^nd – texts quite suitable to y^e occasion – Wednesday preached M^r Whitakers annual sermon it so cal’d as its preachd on y^e anniversary day that first he began to keep school. This text was Prov^s y^e 2^nd & 5^th verses ‘Yea” &c how greatly do I admire y^t worthy good man M^r Evans jun^r he told us was well – In y^e evening M^r Francis gave us a most striking discourse from y^e same text as at Trowbridge w^ch I heard from “Examine yourselves” how needful is this exhortation may my heart attend to it for unless I am a doer it avails nothing to be a hearer of y^e word. Those priviledges w^ch I now injoy will only aggravate my condemnation. May divine grace prevent my fears & make all tend to make me to grow in grace & in the knowledge of Jesus Christ whom to know is life eternal. This [is y^e] true knowledge w^ch is superior to all other. Be this my pursuit & [to this] End may I attain a perfect possession of it & injoy y^e glorious Effects produced by it.

As my dear & hon^d Friend lately said tis a great thing for in his own words, he says, “My very dear young Friend to be a True Christian is a great thing – and to conduct ourselves as strangers & pilgrims upon Earth – & look upon Eternity as our home – the thought of Eternity will drown 70 80 or 100 years out of sight – & yet in this short period we are through grace made meet for Heaven.” – What are all the titles Earth can bestow wⁿ compard with y^t of y^e True Christian they are not worthy to be mentioned. May I but deserve that name in its full [extent] & my highest wish is gratified. How amiable how honourable as well as advantageous is it – how much is contain’d in it – to be a Christian is to be every thing y^t is amiable that is praiseworthy – it is a narrow but straight path w^ch leads to Eternal Life & tho’ there are but few y^t find it yet my beloved Friend may you & your unworthy Myrtilla be of that happy Number – to be led & guided into all truths fitted & last enter into the perfect joy of our Lord through y^e alone Intercessor who Intercedes at y^e Right [hand] of God. O could I say with hope well ground[ed] who pleads for me as your dear Aunt has most fully express’d so ^I would^ wish to say “Jesus, to thee I breathe my prayer Reveal confirm my Interest there Whate’er my humble lot below This this my Soul desires to know.”

Oct^r 31^st I intended to have finished this before but was prevented Yesterday we had M^r Collins here he p^chd 2 sermons from those words viz “Mighty to Save” – he has some peculiarities in his manner as in making many Introductions &c but on y^e whole I think him greatly improved. He drank coffee ^sup’d^ & spent y^e Evening with us. He was quite free and agreeable in conversation & would you think it? Talk’d much ^from him^ to me. Don’t you think I am honoured! I really like him better yⁿ ever – M^r Cater & M^r Jeffery Whitaker & another Gent whose name I dont know drank tea with us but did not stay y^e Evening – w^t you mention concerning y^e Quaker is quite out of y^e common way. I have something similar to tell you. I was sometime since at Westbury where was a woman y^t preaches. I made some little enquiry about her ^such as^ whether her doctrine was good whether she did p^ch by practice as well as precepts &c ^to^ all w^ch I was answered in y^e affirmative. So my curiosity led me to go to y^e place of her abode to see her. I went & found her agreeable in her person, in her conversation Instructing & pleasing – had some little account of her life &c. Her name is Elizabeth Mitford. Her mother came from Edinburgh was a woman of a good family & some fortune [married] a man who proved to be wild & soon reduced her to poverty. She [came] to live with D^r Stennett. Lived with him 3 years in w^ch time she was join’d to y^e [church] under M^r Stevens pastoral care – her husband found her claim’d her as his & insisted on her living with him. She laid her case before y^e church. After his promised Reformation they advised her to live with him w^ch she did & he again reduced her to abject poverty. She then took her young Child (w^ch is the aforesaid preacher) & set out for her native place Edinburgh. She was taken ill on y^e road & after y^e expiration of 6 or 7 weeks died leaving her child to providence. She was by some means w^t I know not bred up about 12 years of age she was taken into M^r Whitfield’s Society. She is now about 21 & has preached in publick about 2 years – She is not a Quaker. I told her I should have been glad to have heard her but she began too late to admit of my staying y^t Eve. She very obligingly told me she would have began sooner had she known of my coming but hoped if I now staid my Labour would not have been quite in vain – She appears [diffident] & humble, spoke of y^e lawfulness of womans speaking &c however my curiosity would have led me to hear her was I perfectly assured of her deserving a good character. Some bad things have been reported of her. I know not whether they are authentic or not if they are she must be bad indeed but as we must make some allowances for scandal prejudice envy &c I know not w^t to say only those reports has kept me f^m accepting M^r & Miss Guestfords invitation to come & hear her. They say she has an Excellent gift in prayer.

Yesterday I rec^d a letter from my dear cousin he tells me of his being with M^r Twining &c I was quite pleased with his welcome Epistle. I am sorry to hear our dear Myra & her mama is so poorly. I hope she will write soon we join in respectful Comp^ts to all your happy circle in the tenderest commendations of Friendship to our dear Afflicted Theodosia – my love to Lucinda & y^e dear little prattlers as to Miss Goddard. Shall I own I am almost – with her I was in hopes she would have hon^d me with a Letter. I long’d very much to know how your aunt was & how your papa & mama arrived at Broughton but no tidings would the gentle one in all other respects amiable Clarissa send me. Wont you take my part by telling her she should have complied with my request? I think you will my love await her. She will be more kind I hope for y^e future –

I have not heard from sister Head since Tuesday last. She with my dear & hon^d Mother &c was yⁿ well – may a kind providence preserve y^m for health & safety. I desire to chearfully confide in y^t goodness I have hitherto experienced. O may my Maria be brought safely through the difficult hour. Indeed my dear I cannot express y^e distress I was in y^e day I left Bradford if you knew it you wou’d pity me but why do I say so I have your tenderest sympathy. You can sympathize for your heart is apt to feel to melt in tenderness at others woe – O may the alwise disposer of Events in mercy preserve each of my dear Friends & long prolong their valued lives. May sincere gratitude for every fresh mercy be implanted in every heart & we all inabled to live to y^e praise & glory of y^e bounteous donor – Serve praise & adore y^e God of all our mercies thro’ Life & be fitted & at last meet in y^e blissful regions above where y^e absence of one blessing shall not imbitter those we possess but where a full perfection of immortal happiness forever resides is y^e prayer of my dearest Silvia your ever Affec^te

J Attwater

Sister joins me in y^e sincerest affection for my amiable Friend. I have many things to say but see my paper will not admit of it were it not for my Silvias partiality I should think I have allready said enough to tire your patience be you to excuse it I cannot express my Gratitude for your last welcome favour may I look for a letter soon after you come home

Text: Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.2.(e.). Postmark: Devizes. Address: Miss Steele / Broughton / near Stockbridge / Hants; for an annotated edition of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 257-60. Miss Mitford, who originated among the Particular Baptists of London, moved into one of Whitefield’s Societies before becoming a Methodist preacher at the age of twenty-one. By the mid-1760s, Sarah Crosby (1729-1804) and Mary Bosanquet-Fletcher (1739-1815) had gained John Wesley’s approval to preach before men as well as women; many others, like Mitford, followed their example, but their exact numbers are not known. Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century, however, the Methodist Conference began to restrict women preachers to audiences of their own sex.